Word of the Day: unusual words you may not have heard of

Extollager said:
On perichoresis? I read a fair bit of Merton 40-odd years ago but I don't remember running into that work -- where should I look?
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Been a while, but I belive New Seeds of Comtemplation for a start. I'll spend a little time and try to come up with a specific citation or two. Perhaps Desert Fathers? I recall spending time on this in a Merton workshop, however that was many moons ago.
 
Snicklefritz said:
Been a while, but I belive New Seeds of Comtemplation for a start. I'll spend a little time and try to come up with a specific citation or two. Perhaps Desert Fathers? I recall spending time on this in a Merton workshop, however that was many moons ago.
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That would be good news, because I have both of those -- the New Directions New Seeds, and their little Wisdom of the Desert book anyway. I've mentioned somewhere how, about 50 years ago now, I read the Desert Fathers book with interest and bought a copy for the girl I was in love with in college, who was kindness itself but not romantically interested, as a Christmas gift. I actually don't think I realized at the time that a collection of apophthegmata (there's another strange word for y'all, ἀποφθέγματα τῶν πατέρων), of cave-dwelling celibates was kind of a weird present for a guy to give a girl, though maybe she thought I was saying indirectly that I accepted our situation, which by then I did.
 
The only hypergelast I know makes me feel exhausted after any social interaction and that I need at least a week's sleep to recuperate. She is a really happy and bubbly person, always positive about everything and chirpy and aarrrrggg.... I need to sleep just thinking about her. This was when I began to wonder is psychic vampires were real!​
 
Guttersnipe said:
Someone already entered agelast, which is someone who never smiles. There is hypergelast, one who smiles excessively. Also, a cachinnator is a person who laughs immodestly and loudly.
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Oh dear. I am a horrible cachinnator - unless there is a special word for a person who cackles rather than laughs. Perhaps cachinnate is the origin of the word cackle?
 
KiraAnn said:
If I saw something like that scampering, I would run like hell away!
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Hi, @Harpo : Re. fasciation - I have actually seen this in a dandelion. It had unzipped the stem which was attached to the flowering head and made both the stem and the flower grow out sideways into a grotesque form. You could clearly see the inside of the stem on one side and the outside on the other, because the inside has a thin layer of pale flesh which contains the phloem and xylem, the tubes which transport food and water.

It was in a public park just a short walk from where I lived.

This was many years ago, shortly after the UK had been bathed in the cloud of radioactivity which travelled over the whole world after Chernobyl had its meltdown. At the time I assumed the plant had been mutated by the radiation, and remains one of the most startling and unpleasant experiences of my life, for all that it wasn't actually gory. I was concerned that this might start happening to people.
 
Palpate (verb): To examine or otherwise explore through touch, particularly in reference to an area or organ of the body.

Thanks to @elvet for that one.
 
Ursa major said:
Palpate (verb): To examine or otherwise explore through touch, particularly in reference to an area or organ of the body.

Thanks to @elvet for that one.
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Adds a somewhat unpleasant nuance to the Emperor Palpatine...

Emperor_RotJ.png
 
And for those who aren't curious to search it enthymeme up:

It's an argument in which one premise is not explicitly stated. ---- All insects have six legs. So all wasps have six legs. What isn't stated but assumed is that everyone knows that all wasps are insects so the above bit of logic is an enthymeme.

Sigh! does anyone else recognize in me the need to explain everything? Maybe that's a good thing in a parson? Maybe not.
 
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